


In Dusk and Dark

by frith_in_thorns



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-04
Updated: 2011-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-23 10:32:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frith_in_thorns/pseuds/frith_in_thorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is a faerie who lures John under the hill</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Dusk and Dark

“Come away,” Sherlock says, the dusky twilight in his eyes.

John shifts his feet, hesitant. They are alone on the ferny hillside beneath the darkening purple sky. He is wearing green in the gloaming; he should have known better.

Sherlock smiles, as if he knows all of John’s thoughts before they have time to fully form. He extends an elegant hand. John draws back, and Sherlock’s eyebrows rise. “We’re bound by words, not gestures,” he says. “You know that.”

John does, although he’d forgotten. Now he feels ashamed of his lack of trust, and reaches out.

The long white fingers he takes are cold as stones beneath a stream. Yet they feel _right_ , as real and alive as any human hand. They send a tremor through him; a feeling that the summer stars have shifted.

“I can show you so much,” Sherlock says. “Come with me.”

“I barely know you.” The phrase sounds too mundane and clumsy.

Sherlock points to his hazel walking stick. “You won’t need that when you’re with me.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“You never asked a question.”

Dew pearls on John’s woollen sleeves. He keeps his weight on the stick, mindful of the stiffness in his leg. But as always it’s the wounds inside he notices more, the scars where the war burrowed inside him only to be ripped abruptly away, leaving a brokenness and a hollowness which sometimes feels like it will never cease to ache.

“I can heal that too,” Sherlock says.

“I didn’t ask a question then, either.”

“Mortals are simple.” Sherlock gives John no time to take offense. “You aren’t happy in your dull little world. So why stay?”

Night is falling. An owl calls somewhere, the sound soft with distance. John has stood here for hours, since he met Sherlock in the windless afternoon. He thinks of the cheerless cottage he is renting and his barren place in London, of a life filled with grey rooms and cooling mugs of tea, of dull people with dull stories who rush past him while he is left behind.

“If I come with you,” he says slowly, “What will there be?”

“Danger,” Sherlock says, and his lips are cool against John’s.

The kiss is gentle and possessive, beautiful and frightening. It brings the touch and smell of leaves turning to the sun, of the arrow-flight of a falcon, of the secrets known by roots deep beneath the earth. The woods and the waters and the wild.

Sherlock steps away at last and the feel of the Fae world recedes, leaving John bereft. His heart is pounding and his senses have awoken, returning him to the heightened state he’s missed so sorely these past months.

“We have to leave before the moon rises.” His voice is moth-wing soft.

There is a silvery hue to the sky in the East.

John frowns. “I haven’t said I’ll come.”

Sherlock pulls the stout stick from John’s unresisting fingers and lets it fall to the ground. John hardly notices its loss. “You will, though.”

There is still not the least stir of a breeze. John finds himself holding his breath, and lets it go. “Yes.”

Sherlock’s smile is delighted, satisfied. His eyes are dark now, and there is a suggestion of stars within them. Or gems, hidden in deep caverns. “Come with me now, then,” he says.

John comes, still holding Sherlock’s bone-cold hand. There is a narrow path through the bracken, winding across the hillside, and then there is a threshold.

The moon is about to rise, and the land is dark and still. In the woods below a vixen screams, and the owl calls again. John turns to bid farewell to the mortal world, but it’s already unimportant and half-forgotten.

He walks with Sherlock into the dark of the hill.


End file.
